Battier for Rudy Gay/Stromile is not paying dividends

and even if they did, jvg cannot develop him

 

These are the words of Tony Mejia in this week's CBS Sportsline NBA Power Rankings:

"Shane Battier still does all the little things he was brought in to help get accomplished, but with Rudy Gay blossoming in Memphis, you wonder if the Rockets don't secretly wish they hadn't have made that draft day trade in June 2006. It was scrutinized then and is drawing even more attention now."

Enough said.

 

So you're basically excusing incompetence for more incompetence.

 

hey I'm all for rudy.. my response was to the poster who was putting the blame solely on morey & cd.. I think jvg, morey, and cd all deserve the blame..

 

You win some, and you lose some. Stromile is deadweight, but at least he can give you 6 fouls a night. Although for Gay's sake, he is much better off in Memphis, because he is their core player, as opposed to playing behind Tracy and Yao who dominate the ball.

 

It wouldn't be so bad if the Rockets learned a valuable lesson, which is not to allow the personality/style of a coach to dictate player drafts. Didn't JVG always go out of his way to say he had nothing to do with draft/trade decisions? I never believed that line, and I still don't. Trading Gay for Battier had JVG's fingerprints all over it. You can always find another coach, but it could be years before the Rockets are in a position to draft another player like Gay.

 

The truth of the matter is JVG didn't want Rudy Gay because he was a Rookie
and would have to be coached inorder to develop. This would have ment playing time and it would have taken away from the Rocket Over the Hill Scrubs, who JVG would have sooner of had playing for him because they were experienced and didn't require much coaching, only direction.
PS Possibly JVG didn't have patience to develop players, the results of his tenure tends to back this up.

 

You are right. Gay will be a star in this league, and that's why we had no interest in drafting him. We already have two superstars that demand touches and shots. The last thing we need is another player that will take away shots from them. We need ROLE PLAYERS. If people are going to bash management, bash them for not getting the right role players. Rudy Gay - not a role player.

Another thing about Gay. He was not a good fit for JVG ball. He has the talent to be a #1 pick, and yet he dropped all the way down to 8. Why is that? That's because people questioned his toughness and mentality in college. He had stretches at UConn where he slacked off and looked completely disinterested. How do you think that's going to work out with JVG as the coach? We also saw when we play the Grizzlies head to head that he's not a good defender.

The only problem I have with the trade is that I think we could've gotten more in return than just Battier.

 

you are absolutely correct.. 3 superstar teams have no place in the nba.. b st n

 

Its been said time and time again here, that if anything Rudy Gay might have been a bit too unselfish, especially deferring to the upperclassmen on the team. He was only 19 when he was drafted.

 

I agree, that is why I said it made sense at the time.

I also don't think that we should have gotten any more than Battier, despite popular opinion.

Due to the exact points you make above, Gay's draft value decreased as questions arose about his mentality and discipline. Battier was a proven role player with great discipline and high basketball intelligence, not to mention a member of Team USA. The Rockets needed a solid role player and there aren't many as qualified as Battier.

My only knock on Shane is not his inability to score consistently but rather is general lack of speed and athleticism. Tracy and Yao are relatively slow for their respective positions and for that reason, I think the Rockets needed and still need to stack relatively athletic players around them to reach their full potential as a team.

So, again, I don't think they could have gotten any MORE than Battier but they may have been able to find a more athletic role player that fit better along side Tracy and Yao.

 

And it is also "crystal clear" that the majority of the players coming out of UConn have done very well in the league - see Ray Allen, Caron Butler, Donyell Marshall, Ben Gordon, Emeka Okafor, Richard Hamilton, etc.

To think that Gay wouldn't be any good considering the track record of the school he played at is severely idiotic on their parts.

Seriously, did they really think that after all the players that school has sent to the NBA?? Are they on drugs??

 

I have to bring up, Sleepy Floyd was consistently posting 30-40 ppg while at Golden State. After we traded for him, his ppg dropped drastically.

So to say that Rudy Gay is that much better than Shane is probably irrelevant until we get Gay within the Rocket's system and see how well he performs.

BUT I still think we could have gotten more in the trade, and that's the only reason I would suggest it wasn't a good trade.

 

Sorry, I meant to say he averaged around 20 ppg while at GS and consistently saw him scoring 30 or 40 points during some games.

His average dropped to like 12 ppg during his tenure with the Rockets.

 

even though this really isn't a fair criticism of jvg because he was a good coach here.

that "doesn't fit in the system" argument is what got dom capers fired with the texans. particularly passing on good defensive players because he ran the 3-4 defense.

iow, its not a legit argument either, if shawn marion doesn't fit in your system, your system is the problem.

 

Truer words haven't been said.

 

I can only imagine the reaction if Rudy goes off tonight and Shane has a really bad game. Especially, if Rudy goes off on Shane.

 

Correct. We don't need more talent. We don't need another scorer. We don't need another super athlete. We don't need another person who can drive the ball. Team USA should have Kobe, Lebron and a bunch of role players.

 

Also, the Celtics are horrible now that they have three superstars on their roster. The made a big mistake getting Ray and KG in the off season.

 

I like shane battier.

He plays his A$$ of, respects the fans, autographed a ball for me, and literally bleeds for the Rockets.

We made a bad trade.